![]() We all agree that planning to blow up a major institution, even if it is a much disliked spy agency, is not a good idea. But this is what the evil extremist, hardliner Nikita Uvarov was trying to do when he was getting ready to blow up the headquarters of Russia’s FSB, it’s federal security service. Still, I think it offers insight into just how sick (and, by implication, how bloody dangerous) his regime really is. This piece of news caught my attention a couple of weeks ago, before Tsar, pardon me, benevolent humble president Putin launched the opening salvo of what may yet prove to be WWIII and the end of civilization. The little eyes of Stray, the cat, may very well end up as the final witness to that echo of our existence. Now that the city is open, what is going to happen as the robots disperse? What remains (other than lovely colonies of feral cats) after the last robot’s power supply runs out or the robot suffers some irreparable damage? While it was hidden behind its impenetrable walls, the city of Stray preserved at least an echo, an image of the civilization that created it. Hence my sense of melancholy when I was ultimately successful opening up the city, at the cost of losing my last NPC companion, the drone B-12. But the world of Stray, as far as humans are concerned, is irreversibly dead (unless a sequel introduces us to surviving enclaves of humans, but I sure hope that won’t happen, as it would ruin a great, if depressing, story.) Sure, the societies that emerge are often evil (the Enclave, the Institute) yet they present a path towards a better future. At least in the Wastelands, humans survive. The world of Stray, then, is more depressing than the various Wastelands of the Fallout game franchise. They don’t make things, they just make use of the leftover remnants of a collapsed civilization. Wish I could be as tiny as you, so I could explore new hidden places.” They are so innocent, they are almost completely free of malice (apart from a few security robots and their drones) and they are incredibly polite: “What will it be today, little sir?” asks the robot bartender of the aforementioned bar, “Our world must seem gigantic from your little eyes. ![]() They go through the motions, sure, even running, rather pointlessly, barbershops and bars with robots for customers. Because the robots do not form a functioning society. ![]() And this cat may very well be the last representative of our once great civilization. When the game ends, the cat is free, again walking under a blue sky chasing a butterfly. His drone buddy, who turns out to carry the consciousness of a human (quite possibly the very last human), helps him navigate the dangers and eventually open up the city. The result: A walled city (“safest walled city on Earth!”) devoid of human inhabitants, infested with evolved trash-eating bacteria that now eat cats and robots both, and inhabited by kind, naive, incredibly gentle, almost innocent robots, former Companions, cleaning and maintenance staff who have become somewhat self-aware, mimicking the behavior of their former masters.Ī few of these robots dream of the Outside, which is where the cat protagonist comes from, after falling off a broken pipe. ![]() The reason why there are only robots has to do with humans, and something unspeakably evil that these humans must have done in the distant past. Only robots, which look very obviously robots, with display screens as faces showing cute emoticons. Even the ending can at best be described as bittersweet.īecause… because for starters, in Stray there are no humans. What more can I ask for?īut then I realized that the story of Stray is incredibly sad. The visuals are stunning, the story is engaging (reminds me of the quality of writing that went into the classic Infocom text adventure games in the early 1980s) and the cat is an orange tabby that looks and behaves just like our Freddy. And the game is set in a post-apocalyptic dystopia, my favorite genre, so to speak.)Īs I said, I was playing Stray. So I’ve been playing this cyberpunk cat game (how could I possibly resist? The protagonist is a cat. ![]()
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